I'm still awake. The Fox29 people just said good night and fuck off already but my tv is still on in the hopes of seeing someone somewhere still talking about the Phillies World Series win. Let's see if ESPN is still talking about the World Series. No, ESPN has an Obama ad on. Fuck the election. Who the heck cares about the economy, the war and the possibility of having to give up my home to my bank and living on the street? Not me. Cause it is Phillies night. Fox is still showing highlights of the win even though the anchors have departed and are quite possibly fornicating in the green room. They are a sexy horny bunch. My bottle of Jack is down to its last three gulps. I am still awake. I'll probably have to go downstairs to get some beer.

I wish I lived in metro Philly. I would have loved to go outside and set a few SUVs on fire. But as it stands right now, I live in the suburbs where people have garages and fire extinguishers and therefore, I shall have to be satisfied with listening to fireworks from a distance. Although some jackass did drive by my home honking his car horn. Also, I could hear drunk people in the townhouse across the street who appeared to be very happy. Yeah, here in the suburbs, we support the Phillies too in our sheltered pusillanimous way. Perhaps I shall indeed attend the Phillies victory parade wearing my new World Series cap as was suggested.

Anyways, I'll drink the rest of the Jack, wait till everybody on tv stops talking about the Phillies and then go to sleep. I will see you tomorrow.

All of metropolitan Philadelphia is out on the streets right now. The temperature is almost down to freezing. People are screaming and jumping around like maniacs. Police are standing by on building terraces in case the city decides to burn itself to the ground. It is a crazy scene at Broad and Oregon.

After Lidge got the final strike out, I jumped up and hit the ceiling. Then I raised my face to the heavens and let out a yell. Then I went outside, raised my face to the real heavens, not the ceiling and let out another yell. It was exciting to yell with a purpose rather than just yell randomly as I have been doing till now. I doubt anyone in Philadelphia and its suburbs is going to sleep tonight.

The fans in the stadium booed commissioner Bud Selig as he was handing out the trophy tonight. They don't forgive and forget, these Philadelphians. I think this city is insane. This is what the Inquirer is reporting right now :

Fans outside Citizens Bank Park in Lot M at Pattison Avenue and Darien Street were breaking bottles on cars and attempting to light an SUV on fire 40 minutes after the final pitch in the Phillies first World Series win in 28 years. Police quickly arrived and started to disperse the crowd. The crowd started mixing it up with the police. By then, the crowd had also completely overturned a green Ford Explorer.

Yeah, even our hooligans are environmentally conscious. When they need to celebrate something, the first thought that crosses their mind is, "Goddamn, I gotta get myself a gas-guzzling, greenhouse gas emitting SUV to overturn and incinerate."

Area stores are already ready with World Series Championship merchandise to sell. I've been needing a cap for a while now. I did not buy it. I decided to wait for the 2008 Phillies World Series Championship cap to come out. I knew it was a long shot, but my patience and confidence paid off. Tomorrow I go buy myself that cap. I think I'm not gonna get any sleep tonight.

So how about them Phillies?

Your turn to win it all now, Barack.

Surprising factoid of the day

Two of my colleagues, both staunch Republicans, have confided to me that John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his vice president convinced them to vote for Barack Obama.

I guess Americans are not as batshit insane as McCain was counting on them to be.

Ganesha-shaped growth

Here is a nice link to start off your day. It talks about a guy from New York, Sam Lal, who made horto-theological history by managing to cultivate the Hindu God Ganesha in his backyard. It turns out that a flower in his backyard assumed the form of an elephant's head and trunk which he immediately recognized as the popular deity.This flower deity then went ahead and cured him of all his ills including some kind of spine ailment.

It must be admitted, however, that Sam Lal reached the conclusion that this elephant shaped flower in his backyard was actually Ganesha only after a rigorous examination of the facts. "For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing," he said, speaking from experience as a person usually surrounded by short things.

With this month of October being uncommonly cold, Lal is now protecting Ganesha from the frosty nights by covering Him with the "shimmering translucent veil of the Heavenly Apsaras flanking Lord Shiva on each side as He meditates high atop Mount Kailash", or what is colloquially known as plastic foil.

(Above : Sam Lal, respectfully reaching out to grab Ganesha's trunk)

But Sam Lal is a generous man who is not possessive about his home-grown Gods. He has thrown open his backyard to fellow Flower Pilgrims. One of them, Hansannie Singh, of Queens, on being confronted with the Ganesha Flower said, "I'm amazed - I actually got goosebumps when I saw it." Unfortunately for Hansannie Singh, not a single one of those goosebumps resembled a Hindu deity.

Another believer Kris Ram, snapped cellphone pictures of the flower God. Immediately thereafter, his cellphone was rid of its intermittent bizarre behavior where it would make a "ringing" noise , followed by a human like voice saying what appeared to be "howl howl". "This is really happening", said Kris Ram, "Ganesha cured my cellphone. Now I can snap pictures in peace".

Uddit Patel, 17, said the flower definitely made him a believer. "I was astounded," he said. "It's proof there is a God". Refusing to rest on his laurels, Patel later went on to prove how the existence of flowers that do not look like Ganesha prove that there is no God. His cousin, Deepesh Patel, 25, was similarly ecstatic. "I'll never see anything like this in my lifetime," he said. "Oh wait, what is that, is that...bread? In sliced form? I never thought I would see anything like that in my lifetime."

The amazing plant story has been picked up by news media around the world, particularly in India, home to 1 billion Hindus, who reacted by saying, "Whaaa? So this Ganesha-shaped rock that I've been worshiping all this time wasn't really Him?"

And then

And now the cops are in northeastern Philly. They are here to arrest the two thousand or so Philadelphians who are out on the streets. The loyal residents of this city are now celebrating this great victory in the proper manner by climbing onto light poles and signboards. This is how Philadelphians express joy. Not by giving each other hugs and high fives but by attempting to scale the highest point in the vicinity of where joy was experienced.

As I watch from the Fox29 chopper, I see a few people performing calisthenics on the street, using this activity as an outlet for their happiness. It is heartwarming to see health-consciousness intrude even upon such a momentous occasion. And they call Philadelphia one of the most obese cities in the US. To that, I say pah. Pah to you, sir. I say, before you call us obese, get on a fucking chopper and watch us perform calisthenics in the middle of the night just because we won the fucking pennant.

The Fox29 reporter informs us that she has a bunch of beer in her hair. She also adds that she heard somewhere that beer is good for her hair. Perhaps that is what is keeping her from sucking it out.

The crowds on the street are now increasing in number. Fox29 is telling me that people are getting rowdier and bottles are being thrown. Now the police are asking me to shut off my tv in order to avoid encouraging the crowd from performing for the camera. I did not know Philadelphians valued my attention so much. Behave, Philly. Now I know why our sports teams haven't won anything for a long time. It's a conspiracy by law enforcement authorities to keep us from rioting and destroying our own homes.

Win-win

The Philadelphia Phillies won the final presidential debate against John McCain. Sarah Palin flied out to catcher Carlos Ruiz on the final play of the game and then everything went crazy and everybody ran out of the dugout and then there was champagne and video cameras covered with plastic foil and tears of happiness and beautiful MVPs accepting trophies. Firecrackers exploded in the dead of the night and tequila was injected into the bloodstream.

In other news, Barack Obama is going to the baseball World Series.

Poorhouse

Today I kept seeing the news of the stock market crash on CNN on my way to the sports section. Don't judge me, the Phillies begin their seven game journey to the World Series today. So they say that the stock market has crashed and burned. Today the DOW Jones fell below 9000, whatever that means. I remember those days of above 10,000 DOW with sad nostalgia as if it were yesterday. But what does this mean for the average person? Am I gonna lose my job? Am I gonna be poor? What will I eat? I decided to test the edibility of various things I might have to eat when I am poor. I found a packet of Burger King onion ring sauce on my bookshelf. It's been here for a while. I tore it open and sucked it down. It tasted of stale oil but when you got past the taste, it was quite filling. Ten of those per day should provide me with the necessary vitamins and folic acid to lead a relatively non-toxic life.

I checked my 401K balance yesterday. The pretty lady on CNN advised me not to because she said she was concerned about my cardiac health. But it's like watching a car wreck on the highway, I had to do it regardless of the warnings. After checking the numbers and doing some calculations, I discovered that I am getting a 401K personal return of -47% on my investments. I guess what it means is that for each dollar I invest, I get to keep 53 cents. It seems like a good deal until you consider the fact that if I had kept that money under the mattress instead, I could have kept the entire dollar for myself. Plus it would have removed the wrinkles from those bills.

But there is a silver lining to the ominous clouds of terror gathering on the economic horizon. My new home has apparently increased in value. After dropping like a stone from the moment I bought it, my home value has not only regained its original loss but also climbed up an additional two thousand dollars in the past two months. Hopefully it means that my walls are slowly turning into gold or something. In which case, I will probably tear them down, melt them into gold bullion (which is easier to hoard) and plant new walls. It is indeed a blessing that walls are a sustainable natural resource.

The VP debate

My thoughts here.

Okay then.

Beginning tomorrow, politics will return to its former home.

What Biden ought to say

What Joseph Biden ought to say tonight during the debate.

God that was cathartic.

Update : Also, a slideshow on how Biden is preparing for his debate. (via ggop in comments).

?

McCain camp prays for a Palin wedding. (via)

Hello America, that's how stupid this McCain guy thinks you are. He believes that when you see his vice president's daughter get married on television, you'll be so awed with the spectacle that come election day, you'll still be thinking of that wedding and will vote for McCain because it will be his vice president's daughter's wedding that you will be thinking of.

America, please tell me McCain is wrong and you're not that stupid.

www.freecreditreport.com

It is a scam. You know, they keep telling us that there is no such thing as a free credit report sandwich till they are blue in the face, but do we care? No. We are people enamored by the free stuff and we keep hoping. And then we log onto websites that begin with the word "free" and may or may not end with the word "creditreport" or "videos" and we sign up for everything they have to offer. And then we get computer viruses, spyware and sometimes, chickenpox.

Now these here folks with www.freecreditreport.com, they will provide you with a "free" credit report and initially, all will be well. Your free credit report will inform you that you have exceptional credit and that you belong in the elite top 5 percentile of the mindless American consumer demographic and you bask in the glow of being an asset to the economy. But then, after a week, you check your credit card bill and you see that some asshole has billed you for $14.95. Then you make some inquiries and it turns out that it is in fact the folks at www.freecreditreport.com who have "charged" you a "fee" of $14.95. Apparently when you signed up for your free credit report and were making plans to take it out to dinner and a movie, you also signed up for a credit monitoring service that wasn't free and who the heck knows what else. Now everyday, you have to check your credit card online to see what else you signed up for on that unfortunate evening.

Now here's the irony. The reason you signed up for the free credit report in the first place was so you wouldn't have to keep checking your daily credit card activity for vague amounts charged by companies such as the very same free credit report company you signed up with.

www.freecreditreport.com. Scam. And fuck you, freecreditreport.com funny song guy. I am no longer sympathetic to your bad credit woes.

That bad?

Here's how I know we are fucked. The folks on my morning radio show, who usually discuss cleavage and its effects on localized inflation, today, had a finance guy over to educate listeners on the bailout and its consequences on the economy. Of course, there was still some humor, but it was dark humor, the kind where you are making the funny on the outside but weeping tears of blood on the inside. When Preston and Steve stop talking boobs and talk economy instead, it is time to curl up in a corner and start believing in God.

Here's an additional reason to curl up in a corner.

Here she comes, Miss Alaska

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

(via)




Archival footage from Ms. Palin's early career :

Interviewer: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?

Sarah Palin: "I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh...people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and...I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our...

(Disclaimer : Model shown not really Sarah Palin. Also, this website is not supported or approved by the Obama for America campaign.)

Thought of the day

When Democrats try to justify the selection of Joseph Biden as vice presidential candidate, they argue that he is a good selection because he has the necessary skills for the job. When Republicans try to justify the selection of Sarah Palin as vice presidential candidate, they argue that she is a good selection because she will help McCain win the election.

Ice cream

Not a big fan and this ain't helping.

Insane

Here's how criminally insane some Americans are. I was witness to the dispensation of this nugget of expert political analysis from one American to another while working out in the gym. It went like this :

Joe Biden has spent a number of years in the US Senate. Joe Biden's net worth is a mere $150,000. Senators typically earn a lot of money. Joe Biden in particular, who is the senator from Delaware, should have earned even more money through kickbacks from all those credit card companies that call Delaware their home. Since Joe Biden's net worth does not adequately reflect all those kickbacks that he surely must have received, Joe Biden is hiding something and therefore, is highly untrustworthy as a vice presidential candidate.

Are these people for real? If so, God Bless America.

MSeinfeld

Wait, wait, don't retire those ads yet. Explain to me first what the heck they were trying to say.

Revised Godwin's Law

Revised Godwin's Law (now renamed as GodNoWin's law) :

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of it turning into an argument regarding the existence of God approaches one."

Case study here.

This law has been so named because once a debate has reached that asymptotic state of ineffectual equilibrium, it turns into a no-win situation for either debater because of :

1.> Pro-God faction beginning to think and say ungodly things about anti-God faction.
2.> Anti-God faction wishing there were a God and that He would rain lightning upon Pro-God faction.